Tom Watson launched a broadside yesterday against widespread government snooping on millions of people who use Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Mr Watson declared that continuous mass surveillance of the social media of every Britishcitizen was “incompatible with basic human rights.”

The West Bromwich MP put down a Commons early day motion (EDM) expressing “great concern” at the extent of mass surveillance by the counter-terrorism arm of the government’s GCHQ spy centre.